Quoted: Tech billionaires and human immortality

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(HD Video) Dr. Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation and Sergey Brin, Co-Founder & President, Technology at Google take part in the introduction of the teams that will compete in the Google Lunar X PRIZE at an announcement at Google in Mountain View on Feb. 21. 2008. The Google Lunar X PRIZE, sponsored by the X PRIZE Foundation and Google is a robotic race to the moon that will give $30 million in prizes. These international teams will compete to land a privately funded robotic craft on the Moon that will gather date back to earth. (Gary Reyes/Mercury News)

When I am successful in realizing this mega-project, then I will finally have 10,000 years for numerous hobbies.

— Dmitry Itskov, founder of the 2045 Initiative, which aims to transfer our brains and human consciousness to robot avatars instead of bodies that weaken and die. Itskov is a billionaire who s known as the godfather of the Russian Internet. He also apparently has plenty of hobbies.

Think tech isn t working on big problems? Newsweek checks on the progress of the 2045 Initiative and other efforts — including in Silicon Valley — to cheat death. The efforts are funded by other deep-pocketed titans of tech: Peter Thiel of PayPal fame has given money to the Methuselah Foundation, which is working to find drugs that cure age-related damage to the body s cells. Oracle founder Larry Ellison s Ellison Medical Foundation distributes grants to those who are researching aging. As we ve written, Google spinoff Calico s stated mission is to harness advanced technologies to increase our understanding of the biology that controls lifespan. Google s Larry Page has also backed Singularity University; co-founders Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis are big fans of immortality — or at least living till 700.

One prospect that seems promising, according to the Newsweek piece: Progress in reversing aging in mice. Also cause for optimism, perhaps, is being able to 3D print organs. And in the are robots the answer department, the magazine mentions that Intel is aiming to have an exascale computer — a computer that can operate at the same speed as the human brain — by 2018.